I know this is unrelated but I have two instances of WinXP Prstinstalled on a single partitions. I'm trying to do a "Repair Install" off of the CD for the First Instance of the install, but when I got do a repair install, only the 2nd (Newest Install) shows up for me to repair.

you have to edit your boot.ini file to make the other o/s show up as one of the options. go to properties of my computer. hit the advanced tab then under startup & recovery hit the settings button. then hit edit and notepad comes up with some coding. copy and paste the last line right below it. should work

I'm into computers a little, but a buddy of mine can walk people through troubleshooting procedures like, "start>settings>CP>system>hardware>DM>etc...." without even being anywhere near a computer! I'm like

I just read that the guy that invented ctrl+alt+del died...he was some kind of computer pioneer in the 70s.

Also, did you know that email just turned 34 years old?

"It's difficult to pin down the exact origin of email, but in October 1971, an engineer named Ray Tomlinson chose the '@' symbol for email addresses and wrote software to send the first network email."

you have to edit your boot.ini file to make the other o/s show up as one of the options. go to perties of my computer. hit the advanced tab then under startup & recovery hit the settings button. then hit edit and notepad comes up with some coding. copy and paste the last line right below it. should work

Hey Madskills,

I'm actually pretty efficient with computers. Below is what's in my boot.ini The issue is my install in the "\windows" is corrupt. When I boot up my system with the WinXP CD and try to to a repair install, only the "\XPPRO" install is showing up for me as an option to repair.

triton - It's been a few years since my Windows Admin days, but I used to be one and teach MCSE... anyway... have you tried to just to a reinstall? During install you can specify the install directory (\windows). Granted, you will lose your registry and have to reinstall apps. It also (may) detect the OS there when you do that and change to repair mode... I've seen it happen that way too. Also, do some searching in the MS Knowledge Base.

Hey Ledzep, i tried the option of installing over, but when i do it clear says that the documents will be deleted, which is the one main thing I want to recover, otherwise I would just reformat and have a clean install. Do you know the website for the MS Knowledge base?

Can you get into windows, or do you have another computer you can use to access the problem hard drive? If you can do that, maybe you can just back up the files onto a CD, then just do a clean reformat.

I have windows installed twice on the same paartition. The first one "\windows" is corrupt, so I installed the 2nd one "XPPro" which is how i'm able to connect and write this message. Now I'm trying to repair the first install, but it's not coming up as an option, only the 2nd one that I just installed. I also can't grab my files because my documents are set to private from the first install

That's what I would do to. Or boot to a Windows98 floppy (God love those things!) and move the document files to another area. A reinstall WILL destroy the Windows directory and all its subs, but nothing else. Or you could get fancy and boot to DOS with TCP/IP support and map a drive to another machine and move them there. You'd have use the NET USE command.

ah good to see another windows admin on this site. ya i do this stuff for a living too, a lot of it over the phone with no computer in front of me. its like any job, if you do it day in and day out, you just get used to it.

Triton - first off what is the reason you have 2 installs of windows on your computer?? most of the time people dont really need to have a dual boot screen. ALso i'm not sure what you mean about the files being set to private. If you cant access a file it means you dont have permission to the file. If you are on the computer as an administrator, you can right click the folder, go to properties, click on sercurity, then go to advanced. then on the Owner , check the box Replace owner on subcontainers and object. Basically in the box you need to take ownership of these files so you have permissions to them. This should take care of all you problems

If you really need 2 operatins systems, download a 90 day trial of Microsoft Virtual PC 2004 for testing. Send me a PM if you have any questions